


Flowers In the Concrete

by Lady_Quill



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:04:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Quill/pseuds/Lady_Quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General angst inspired by the Tag_2013 prompt "flowers in the concrete"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers In the Concrete

**Author's Note:**

> It's my first time writing for a collection and I just made up a situation instead of using an established fandom... Also I wasn't sure if it was alright to respond to a prompt that someone else already posted for. I hope it's still OK? Please feel free to leave comments.

My day has been absolute shit.  I’m not really one to curse, or drink, or well, anything actually come to think of it, but I feel like doing all of it right now.  I’m not sure what being rebellious would prove, maybe that I’m not the mirror image of everyone’s expectations projected onto a girl who looks like me.  That they’ll realize I’m not the “ _good girl_ ” I was when I left home.  God I hate that term.  It’s so arbitrary – what the hell does “good girl” even mean?  I’m not hurting anyone, I’m not hurting myself, fuck I’m not even sleeping around, and so what gives you the right to tell me I’m not the “good girl” you thought you’d raised?

Sorry, I shouldn’t even care, after all of this.  It shouldn’t make a damned bit of difference whether you think I’m “ _sweet_ ” or “ _good_ ” and I so wish I could just cut out the part of me that makes me care what you think.  You probably don’t even realize how much it affects me – that when we go to the mall, and the sales lady says “what a sweet daughter you have,” I can’t even look at you, because I’m afraid to see that face of contempt.  That twisted expression that means, “You have no idea that she’s not sweet _anymore_.”  I learned today that contempt is the only asymmetrical facial expression.  Did you know that?  I suppose it makes sense… I don’t think I’ve ever been so hurt by something so _insignificant_.  And it sticks with you.  It invades your sense of self, of autonomy and of making the right decisions, because every little trip-up leads to that one disgusting expression that makes you feel so small and worthless.

I don’t want it to be able to hurt me this much.  If it were only so simple as wanting.  I’m ashamed when it hurts, because I know what my parents think ought not to matter.  Still, I feel like everything I’m doing falls short of _someone’s_ expectations, I don’t even know whose, anymore.  Maybe mine, I’ve stopped being able to tell the difference.  The stakes are higher now.  Job.  Reputation.  Whether I can bring my partner to my brother’s wedding or if that will mean our parents won’t show up out of spite.  I mean, who even pulls that kind of shit?  Maybe they think that’s what being a good parent means.  That if warnings and blackmail and pulling my brother into this will get me to reconsider this whole “gay thing” then that’s good parenting – mission accomplished.  But do they not understand that it’s not going to change anything, I’m not going to change, and the only thing it’s going to accomplish is pushing me away?  No, of course they wouldn’t understand that.

I’m waiting on the bench for the 5pm bus, which never shows up on time.  It’s raining, but then it’s been raining on and off all week so really why should I expect any different?  I know this isn’t a productive train of thought.  It only leads to ice cream.  There was this commercial that I watched the other day, for an airline, and the characters were parents coming to terms with their daughter marrying another woman, and flying out to be at her wedding.  I was glad the airline had done it, but I hated those characters.  Hated them for having the support I know is unrealistic to expect, because all I’ll get is disdain if we ever get past the contempt phase.  Seeing it just makes me feel worse, knowing that somewhere out there are parents who understand that their kids are autonomous individuals who can make adult decisions and respond to them with support, not games of power and control.

It’s still raining, and the bus hasn’t shown up yet.  It probably won’t, and I’ll be sitting here for another 20 minutes until the next one comes.  There are other people here waiting but nobody I want to talk to.  There’s a little flower growing up between the cracks of the sidewalk.  Maybe it’s a weed and not a flower, I can’t tell.  Funny, how it seems more real than anything else right now.  I’m not sure I’m ready to face _people_ yet, even if it’s just my friends telling me that things will get better.  But a flower that can’t talk back or get to have their parents support them at their wedding – that I can deal with, I think.  And maybe in a while I’ll be able to see hope like everyone else does.


End file.
